Writing With My Mouth Full

Baked Red Snapper with Salmoriglio

From the New York Times last week, I learned what salmoriglio is: an acidic and velvety sauce of Sicilian origin that’s perfect for fish. I always use it; I just never knew it had an actual name!

After running an errand for my friend Judy, I stopped by the Westside Market on Broadway and bought a whole red snapper to prepare for dinner. I’ve been watching the Bahamian fish competition on Discovery Channel and I’ve been craving grilled whole fish for days. But with snow on the ground and without a grill, I had to settle for baked fish safely cooked in the confines of the Dr.’s apartment.

Ingredients:
1 whole red snapper, scaled, cleaned, pat dry with paper towels
2 sprigs rosemary
1 lemon, sliced
1 red onion, sliced
6 bay leaves
4 garlic cloves, peeled, minced
oil, salt, pepper

For the salmoriglio:
leaves from 2 sprigs of thyme, stems reserved for fish
2 sprigs of parsley, chopped
1 tsp oregano powder
1 garlic cloves, minced
zest and juice from 1 lemon
oil, salt, pepper

1. In a bowl, mix the salmoriglio herbs and spices together. Drizzle some oil and add the lemon juice by whisking with a fork. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450º. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and brush with olive oil.
3. Scatter the half of the lemon slices and half of the onion on the baking sheet and top with the thyme stems, rosemary sprigs and bay leaves. Season the fish with salt and pepper and stuff with garlic cloves and place on top of the herbs. Drizzle the fish with olive oil. Place the remaining lemon and onion slices on top of the fish. Cover with foil and bake until the fish is cooked through, about 20 minutes. Serve the fish whole, with salmoriglio sauce on the side.

Searching for a Good Taco: Sunset Park, Brooklyn

Look what you did, Jase said as he pointed to the window. It was snowing even though the weather channel reported rain for the day. It wasn’t taco-eating weather but we had work to do: we will find a good taco in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Sunset Park, Brooklyn experienced its heyday during World War II when the Brooklyn Army Terminal employed more than 10,000 people to help ship to American troops. Like any other neighborhood, it reach its peak and lost its allure to families who wanted to move to the suburbs. All of a sudden, the rowhouses that would remind you of San Francisco were no longer valuable. By 1990, 50% of Sunset Park’s population consisted of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Today, Brooklyn Chinatown is along Eighth Avenue, while Seventh is favored by Indians from Gujarat and Fifth Avenue by Mexicans. It was this detail that made me drag Jase to the main drag to search for a good taco.

I had a small list and I gave the Jase my usual rules: a chorizo taco is a good start, but we’ll order the weirdest thing they have available. Jase had his, too: No head, no tripe, no eyes, no ears. I nodded to say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I know I’ll try my best to convince him to eat them anyway. Luckily for him, the trucks were nowhere to be found because it was the middle of the day and most of the hole-in-the-walls were covered with plywood. We ended up walking from 44th Street to 55th and ducking in each place that didn’t look too fancy.

1. Tacos Nuevos Mexico III, 44-10 Fifth Avenue, 718/686.8151

Where was I and II? This was the first place we spotted as soon as we turned the corner on Fifth Avenue. It was past noon and we were famished. Upon confirmation that they were open for business–no one was inside and the kitchen looked sparkly clean–we sat down and ordered one carnitas taco and one chorizo. Two of each came and all four were slathered with wet guacamole. I like avocados; I just don’t like them in my tacos because they end up hiding the flavor of the meat. I realized I hadn’t done this taco search in a while that I forgot to let the waitress know that guacamole and sour cream were no-nos. In any case, the carnitas were very soft and fatty, while the chorizo was salty and spicy. We devoured them with Diet Cokes and we were very satisfied with everything, guac and all.

2. Tacos Xochimilco, 45-01 Fifth Avenue, 718/435.7600

The lengua, or beef tongue, at Xochimilco tasted like it had been cooking for hours. It was sweet and it fell apart at each prod of a plastic fork. The tripe was surprisingly delicious. I am used to having them a little chewy with its natural offal taste included, but this one was just right. Jase ended up liking the tongue, too: Like Mom’s Sunday pot roast.

3. La Guera, 46-03 Fifth Avenue, 718/437.0232

La Guera had the cheapest of all the tacos we tasted. A small one cost us $1.25 when we thought the $1.50 at Xochimilco was already a good deal. But you get what you pay for: the pastor taco tasted too earthy here; a little bit dry, with only a small chunk of pineapple and a spritz of lime juice to save it. The buche, one of my favorite types of taco, or the stomach, was just a load of flavorless fat.

4. Tacos California, 46-16 Fifth Avenue, 718/439.1661

I usually avoid restaurants that bill itself as “authentic” but we were getting full and the snow had turned to steady rain. We needed to stay dry and warm, so we went in here to take a break while a Mexican soap opera blasted overhead. We ordered a taco that was called an enchilada with “spicy pork” in parentheses. From my understanding of fast foods, enchilada is a bigger tortilla stuffed with anything as long as tomato sauce is involved. I was right, but it was awkward to eat because it was half the expected size. Notes of paprika and cumin were included, two of my favorites spices, but the tomato definitely tasted like it came from a can. Jase refused to try the cabeza, or the head, which was too bad because it was the restaurant’s saving grace. It was fatty and gelatinous and full of flavor–my lips were coated in natural fat soon after.

5. Tulcingo, 55-20, Fifth Avenue, 718/439.2896

By the time we entered Tulcingo, Jase and I were giving up. I felt defeated after just six tacos, but alas, good things must come to an end. Every place we went to had orejas, or ears, on the menu, but only Tulcingo actually had them. The last time Jase and I had pigs’ ears, they were fried, and he wished these were, too, instead of just boiled to death. But I did like the crunchy cartilage even if the skin felt more like Jell-O in my mouth. The chorizo here was mediocre, though I liked how it was spicier than the first one we had.

All in all, we had some good tacos but nothing that blew me away. We split one Negro Modelo to end our late lunch date and toasted to our rainy Mexican day in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Looks like it’s time to take a trip out west to satisfy my taco craving this year.

Chicken Tinola, Filipino Chicken Ginger Soup

Tinola, or Filipino chicken ginger soup, is one dish that I don’t make often. When I was growing up in Manila in the, ahem, 80s, my father brought the farm from his hometown of Ilocos Sur with him. We had a backyard with a small fish pond and a chicken coop. Each week, we would either have paksiw, or fish soup with ginger, or tinola. Every Sunday, our family lunch consisted of a freshly-slaughtered chicken, all innards included, in a big pot of steaming soup.

Traditionally, tinola uses green papaya and the leaves from a Thai chili plant. For the sake of making it easier here in New York, I use chayote, which is readily available in Harlem, and watercress, which is plentiful in Chinatown. I’ve given you a recipe that calls for fish sauce, but salt will do just fine especially if your mother is allergic to fish. You can also use spinach salad leaves instead of watercress.

We still stay in that house whenever we go back to the motherland, but it has changed so much I can’t imagine that it used to have a guava tree and a large mango trunk out back, too. Twenty or so years later, the spirit that comes with eating tinola with the family is still there, no matter what vegetable I substitute.

Ingredients:
4 pieces of chicken back, some with skin on
2 finger-size gingers, peeled, sliced
3 chayotes, peeled, seeded, cubed
2 bunches watercress
1 small onion, sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
fish sauce
oil

1. In a large Dutch oven, heat some oil. Brown chicken pieces, about 4 minutes per side. Remove from pot and set aside.
2. In the same pot, add a little more oil. Sauté garlic until light brown, ginger until fragrant and onions until soft. Add the chicken pieces back and add a few jiggers of fish sauce. Cook for 3 minutes or enough for the chicken to absorb the fish sauce essence.
3. Add 3 cups of water with the chayote and simmer, covered, for 25 minutes, or until chicken is cooked and chayotes are tender. Season with a few more jiggers of fish sauce. The broth should be gingery with a little bit of saltiness to it. Turn off the heat when done and submerge the watercress. The remaining heat should be enough to cook the watercress.

Irving Mill

116 East 16th Street between Irving Place and Union Square East
212/254.1600â€Ž
$129 for three, with beers, with tip
♥

Wow, they made a big deal about the burgers here. Don’t get me wrong: they were satisfying, but nothing more incredible than what other places in the city has to offer. It also didn’t make up for the confused service we received from our waiter who seemed out of it.

We ordered a few appetizers with our burgers to split between the three of us: salt and pepper pork ribs, crispy pigs’ ears salad with radicchio topped with creme fraiche and arugula-shiitake mushroom salad. We also ordered a side of kale to eat with our burgers. It was perplexing when our waiter brought all the vegetables for appetizers, leaving my friend eating the kale while two of us ate our salads. When we brought this to our waiter’s attention, he seemed to forget that the kale is offered as a side on the menu.

For shiitake, mine looked very much like button mushrooms. I couldn’t pin-point if it was the lack of dressing or tossing of ingredients together in a bowl, but they didn’t meld with the greens. What I expected to be a hearty salad was really dry and boring. I’ve had better salad from delis than this one. The salt and pepper pork ribs brought the same unexciting feeling. How can anything be well-seasoned and at the same time taste bland? When the busboy took away my plate, he spilled the leftover rib juice on our table and we watched as it remained on our table until we had to leave.

I ordered my burger medium-rare but it was pretty rare inside. I didn’t mind it, but I know that that would be unacceptable to many. The fries on the side were limp and soggy. At this point, our waiter disappeared and never returned. We had two different guys bring us coffee and our bill.

The saving grace of the night was the crispy pigs’ ears salad. They were truly crispy and mouth-watering but I would have been more satisfied without the creme fraiche on it. If the service was more pleasant, we would have stayed and ordered extra drinks to try and salvage our night, but we couldn’t wait to get out of there and just give our waiter a break.

Where to eat in Buenos Aires, Argentina: Resto

Thankfully, it’s not all steaks in Buenos Aires. With some perseverance–as in, walking from San Telmo down Microcentro on the way to Recoleta–you can find a small restaurant tucked away from the busy streets. I wanted to experience the action of the city during the day but this proved sort of eh especially when you come from New York City. My companions were already starting to whine because we had been walking for at least two hours. I insisted on Restó for lunch after reading about its use of fresh ingredients in my trusty Knopf map guide and I kept telling them that all the walking will be worth it. My reputation was at stake. Restó better be better than good.

We finally found it behind the Central Society of Architects storefront an hour and a half before they were about to close for the rest of the afternoon. We felt like we’ve been in the jungle as soon as we walked in. The restaurant was a haven of cool air and quietness; we were sweaty and hungry. But all of us lit up as soon as we perused the menu: Rabbit! Quail! Fresh basil! Watermelon! We’ve been in Buenos Aires for two days and we’ve never seen watermelon on the street. And a menu without steak? Que horor! But a most welcomed change for our stomachs.

I found out later that chef-owner Maria Barrutia trained under Ferran Adriá. I swear that tidbit wasn’t mentioned in my guide book. Restó and I were meant to be! The menu changes almost daily, depending on what’s fresh in the market, and everything is cooked with so much skill and care that we couldn’t help but elicit an mmmm after every bite. The tomatoes were plump and bursting with flavor. The onions were sweet so they weren’t just a side; they were part of a whole dish. At Restó, I was thankful for the rock salt, freshly-ground pepper and the chive blossoms on my butter–attention to such detail make me appreciate those who work in the kitchen. (Note that most Buenos Aires tables leave their steaks unsalted and you’re left with table salt and pepper.)

You’ve just gotta trust me on this one.

Rabbit terrine:

Stuffed quail:

Restó is on Montevideo 938 in the El Centro neighborhood. Lunch is a very good deal. Dinner requires reservations, so call them at 11/4816-6711.